Jennifer Garner has opened up about one of the most challenging days of her career, returning to work on Dallas Buyers Club just weeks after giving birth to her third child.
Speaking to Hits Radio’s My Life in Movies YouTube series, the actress, 53, recalled the intensity of filming the Oscar-nominated drama, which was shot in just 21 days shortly after she welcomed son Samuel with Ben Affleck in 2012.
The pace left almost no room to breathe, and for a feeding mother, that presented a very specific and painful problem.
“I was nursing, and we were shooting. It was the first day, and around bedtime for my baby, all of a sudden, my [body] exploded,” she said.
On other productions there had always been a natural window, a camera turnaround, a brief pause, where she could slip away. On this one, there was nothing. “I couldn’t on that film,” she said simply.
The emotion of it all caught up with her on set. Leaving her newborn was already hard, and the physical discomfort tipped her over the edge.
“That third kid, leaving him was so hard, and I was a disaster. And I start crying, and I can’t stop crying. I’m not supposed to be crying. And Matthew said, ‘What is going on with you?'” she recalled.
When she explained what she needed but didn’t want to slow production down, McConaughey didn’t hesitate.
“He said, ‘Guys, I need a minute.’ And he said, ‘Go and just do what you need to do.’ And so the rest of that film, every time I needed to pump [he would break].”
The gesture meant a great deal to Garner, particularly given what McConaughey and co-star Jared Leto were putting their own bodies through at the time, both were on extreme diets to lose weight for their respective roles.
